Hydrogen production with CO2 capture by coupling steam reforming of methane and chemical-looping combustion: Use of an iron-based waste product as oxygen carrier burning a PSA tail gas

Abstract In this work it is analyzed the performance of an iron waste material as oxygen carrier for a chemical-looping combustion (CLC) system. CLC is a novel combustion technology with the benefit of inherent CO2 separation that can be used as a source of energy for the methane steam reforming process (SR). The tail gas from the PSA unit is used as fuel in the CLC system. The oxygen carrier behaviour with respect to gas combustion was evaluated in a continuous 500 Wth CLC prototype using a simulated PSA off-gas stream as fuel. Methane or syngas as fuel were also studied for comparison purposes. The oxygen carrier showed enough high oxygen transport capacity and reactivity to fully convert syngas at 880 °C. However, lower conversion of the fuel was observed with methane containing fuels. An estimated solids inventory of 1600 kg MWth−1 would be necessary to fully convert the PSA off-gas to CO2 and H2O. An important positive effect of the oxygen carrier-to-fuel ratio up to 1.5 and the reactor temperature on the combustion efficiency was found. A characterization of the calcined and after-used particles was carried out showing that this iron-based material can be used as oxygen carrier in a CLC plant since particles maintain their properties (reactivity, no agglomeration, high durability, etc.) after more than 111 h of continuous operation.

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